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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



VERSES FROM THE 
SOUTHWEST 



BY 

THEODORE CLARKSON MERRILL 

'1 




CAMBRIDGE 

PRINTED AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS 
1910 



c.^^ 



^^yx\ 



COPYRIGHT, igiO, BY THEODORE C. MERRILL 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



^CI.A278771 



^ CONTENTS 

; Terrace and Pleasaunce 

' Dedication 3 

The New Year 4 

A Winter Morning 5 

Easter Lilies 7 

Christmas Eve 8 

Sonnet 10 

At the Window 11 

Mephistopheles 12 

Around the Corner 13 

Diana 14 

Rouge et Noir 15 

Song 16 

Rhymes and Roses 17 

Parure 

Diamant 21 

RuBis 22 

Emeraude . . . . - . . . . 23 



I vi J 

Camee ••...... 24 

Perle 25 

Saphir 26 

ToPAZE . 27 

Mirage 

The Prairie Spirit 31 

Brothers 33 

The Lark 34 

Prairie Fog 35 

The Centipede 36 

A Dry Spell 37 

The Mesquite . . . . . . . 39 

The Farmer 41 

The Old Gentleman 43 

To A Fragment of Malachite . . . .45 

Three Sonnets to Delilah .... 47 

Ludlow Street Jail ...... 50 

My Violin 52 

Gretchen 53 

A Dry Rose 54 

Envoy 57 



TERRACE AND PLEASAUNCE 



DEDICATION 

I WOULD my words might clothe my thought 
In dignity, that when displayed 
For those to read who will, a sense 
Of worthiness and grace be taught. 
That noble English suffer naught 
When cupbearer to greeting made. 
I speak a word that breathes immense 
Significance, when here I say, 
"Stand forth, my thought, that my dear friend 
May read here loveliness to-day," — 
For who will read unto the end 
Should find a word that speaks alone 
Straight to the heart that loves the giver; 
So find here, friend, what thou hast known 
Dearest and deepest in love's river. 



THE NEW YEAR 

Minarets 

Faintly appear, 

Castanets 

I hear, 

Tinkling softly, far away, 

Where the fairy fountains play. 

Muffled drums 

And the tread 

That comes 

With the dead 

Sound in distance solemnly. 

And a bell tolls mournfully. 

Landscapes bright 

Then unroll, 

Or if Night 

Dye thy scroll, 

New Year, I will smile or weep, 

'Gainst the time I fall asleep. 



A WINTER MORNING 

Cold, so it is, but your cheek is red — 
A spatter of some warm wine of France 
Might glow like that, and you toss your head 
Hoping, I swear, another chance 
To dare the wind and the frost, and stride 
Miles by sedges where rivulets glide 
Unseen under the ice and snow — 
Shoulder then forth if you must, and go. 

You came just now like a forest bloom 
Caught from a hollow where snowflakes fell. 
You brought to the depths of a firelit room 
A draught of freshness from winter's well 
Strong as grape-juice thick and black. 
Pressed that Vikings' lips should smack. 

Come then again, purveyor-wise. 
And bring the blood I love the best. 
Liquor to lighten a Jotun's eyes. 
Bubbles from Burgundy's bonny breast. 



[6 ] 

Fire and honey and mead and ale, 
Good strong drink in a bitter gale, 
Good strong drink when a man would ask 
Wine of life in a noble flask. 



EASTER LILIES 

Molten globules of mellow light 
Twinkle along the window-sill, 
Fallen somehow in a violet night, 
Out of a chalice a trembling sprite 
Might pour, to spill. 

Standing silent and looking in. 
Pure in a dawn surcharged with dew. 
Lilies are waiting for day to begin, 
Dropping tears for the buried sin 
Of a pardoned Jew. 

Throw me ever the window wide, 

Let the night-wind scatter for me 

Tears that are shaken from flowers outside, 

Easter thoughts of sorrowful-eyed 

Gethsemane. 



CHRISTMAS EVE 

Lord, from the number of sweet thoughts 
Thou hast bestowed for me to use 
And thus give back to thee, I seek 
For thee right worthily to choose. 

I ken a gift that long ago 

Was given, but reaches still the heart, 

The earnest of a greater gift. 

Of which Earth hath no counterpart. 

It was. Lord, not thy Son Himself, 
However dear to us and Thee, 
That dowers the night of Bethlehem 
With sweetest immortality. 

'T is written, no more lofty love 
Than dying that a friend might live. 
But, Lord, 't were not so hard to die 
As to take life thyself didst give. 



[9 ] 
We thank Thee, Father, then to-day 
For thine own life thus subtly given, 
Rejoicing too that Heaven lives 
Still to possess what came from Heaven. 

So, gentlemen, assembling, sing 
A cheerful round of merry song, 
God rest ye then, God save the King, 
God save the right, and thwart the wrong. 

Hark! is not that the Christmas chime 
That comes upon the midnight clear.? 
The wise men, friends, are at the door, 
And say the Son of God is here. 



SONNET 

Thou seekst relief from sorrow's sharpness? Then 
Know well a neighbor — one who makes no cry, 
In whom the fount of tears is ever dry. 
Chosen of Fortune, favorite of men. 
And when his secrets come within thy ken, 
When all his scars concealed no longer lie 
In a bright shell, but open to the sky. 
Comfort the pain that sleeps to wake again. 
Look to thyself when thou hast lulled to rest 
Grief of another, and if there remain 
Aught of the old distress that cursed thy breast, 
There is the caravan upon the plain, 
Wanderers are many, each hath his own sore. 
Minister, friend! and suffer nevermore. 



AT THE WINDOW 

NiVER SO light in the dance is the thrip o' yez, 

Ne'er at yer shmile am I eatchin' me breath, 

But me laugh back at the swate currvin' lip o' yez 

Rings in me ear wit' a promise o' death. 

Ain't I the skiliton death's-head an' jester just? 

But oh, me Annie, ye 're too swate ter shtay. 

Lord! how yer changin' cheek gives me the bitter thrust, 

All o' the Donoghues wint the same way. 

Man! don't shtand gapin' to make thim aware av it, 

Lave me alone in the light o' the shtar — 

Mary, dear! can ye hear aught o' the prayer av it? 

Whisht, Terence lad, is't a baby ye ar-re? 



MEPHISTOPHELES 

Sir — are you real — perhaps as real as I? 
For as you bow from out the well-worn page 
I see you better there than on the stage, 
Waking in me a spark I would let lie 
Dull, unaroused, that stirs to testify 
To you in me of many an evil rage 
Smoothed but to smoulder, witness of the gage 
Plain, sir, to your far-calculating eye. 
Often I chuckle, knowing that my debt 
To your collector can with ease be paid. 
Therein the reason why I do not fret, 
Walk in your company but decline your aid. 
Shutting awhile my book, with Margaret 
Charmed by your brilliant jewels, yet afraid. 



AROUND THE CORNER 

Where do you say the little church is ? 

I have played and played now many a day, 

And I would hide for an hour away 

From the cracking smiles we mummers wear 

I want a darkened corner, where 

I can hear the organ softly play 

Anthems and penitential psalms, 

Myself a beggar, asking alms, 

Seeking crumbs at the Table of God, 

Mendicant not all a sham. 

But the beggar that I am, 

Turbanless and strongly shod — 

And you say there is a place 

Where with lost love I have known 

I can be awhile alone. 

Where real tears can streak my face, 

Where a man like me can pray? 

Is that what I hear you say? 

Where do you say the little church is? 



DIANA 

The pool is limpid liquid — the elusive 

Lines and soft swimming shadows waver, swaying 

Like faint and far-off shells or coral foliage 

Seen through an interposing veil of seaweed. 

Faint in the riffled surface floats an image 

Ivory, whitest marble, alabaster. 

Formed from a cloud, of fleeces warmed at sunset. 

Wild in a joy that neighbors grief undying. 

Eyes in the near-by forest blink, beholding 

In the dark pool a radiant wraith of heaven. 

And traveling upward over curve and color 

Flame on the secrets that are gently whispered 

Into the stillness of the wooing water. 

Poor burning priest who wrote the allegory! 

For if the stag were all, who knew the story? 



ROUGE ET NOIR 

Versez-moi le vin des yeux 
Pour nous jete par les dieux, 
Flamme rouge qui devient noire 
Pour les ames qui prennent a boire. 

Bois, cependant qu'il est vrai 
Nuit se change en jour pare, 
C'est le sort, et si Ton bouge 
Flamme se chauffe de noir en rouge. 



SONG 

RosELEN, fling me from your moss 
Perfume, love, and laughter, — 
Day will come with pang of loss, 
Flora's bridge were sweet to cross 
Back from the hereafter. 

Roselen, roselen, fade you must, 
Flame leaves only ember, 
Petal crumbles in a dust. 
Heart of steel will yield to rust, 
June become December. 

Roselen, give you gramercy. 
Flora, serve a vagrant 
Altar for a votary 
Who would swear his fealty. 
Goddess! you are fragrant! 



RHYMES AND ROSES 

I SAVE the roses kind gods send me, 
And to their death commend my singing 
Awhile unfinished, praying the blooms befriend me 
And leave about the song their odor clinging. 

The simple myrtle, but a shadow. 

Casts still her spell across the river 

That murmurs singing by a golden meadow 

Of flowers that died but seem to live forever. 

Leave rhymes and roses nine years yonder, 
Horace? nine hundred leave them lying 
For printers' props to help them widely wander 
If thus they catch the trick of never dying! 



PARURE 



DIAMANT 

De tes rayons 
Je prends de la lumiere 
Brillante pour la louche legere 
De mes crayons. 

On bien volt 

Qu'une parole pent etre charmante 

Jetee tout dtincelante 

De ton doigt ! 



RUBIS 

Tu es une goutte du vin 
Qu'auparavant ma belle 
Prenait un jour enfin 
A la Sainte Table, elle. 
A sa belle main tombe, 
Comme de ses yeux une larme. 
Regardant, j'ai trouve 
Du ciel le propre charme! 



EMERAUDE 

Le gazon du printemps scintillant 
Jette des eclairs par les gouttes de rosde — 
Je me souviens d'un bonheur en marchant, 
Ecrasant une belle fieur qui meurt oublide. 

Son parfum se mele a la douceur 

Du vent de la mer oil flotte ma mie, 

Le paysage chante en son couleur 

L'amertume de I'amour qu'on nomme la jalousie. 



CAMEE 

Je taille mes grands d^fauts 
Esperant faire paraitre 
Des traits qui seront beaux 
Pour plaire a Dieu peut-etre, 
Mais j'hesite d'apporter 
Au grand Dieu mon pierre 
Laid, pauvre, et souille 
Des taches de la terre, — 
Va ! ton beaute s'en peut servir 
Y contraste pour mieux saillir. 



PERLE 

C'est une larme pour une jeune maride 
La reine d'Egypte toujours aimde 
En connaissait le couleur changeant 
Comme une heure d'amant. 

Elle roule sur le sein de la dame 
Ecoutant son secret de Tame 
Si joli, reflechi du peau 
Au merveilleux joyau! 

On vient — il faut remplacer vite 
Toi, perle, dans ta boite — Marguerite, 
Cette perle des filles, parle en toi 
Haut a moi. 



SAPHIR 

Je tourne mon anneau, — 

Ne verras-tu, ma chere, 

Dans cette goutte gelee d'eau 

Un monde de lumiere ? 

Eh bien! dis, ma chere, 

Si je puis regarder 

Sous ta blanche paupiere 

Un bleu monde tou jours vrai ? 



TOPAZE 

Parfois le brouillard 
Se leve a couvrir le paysage 
D'un voile tenu donnant Timage 
D'un plein soleil, morne et blafard. 
Mais la tristesse ne dure longtemps, 
L'heure de midi vient toujours gaie, 
Levant la douce couverture 
De retincelante dorure, — 
Qu'une ame reste la, enchantee 
Du tableau dmaille des champs. 
Quoi ! tu paries d'une heure amere ? 
Souris done, ma chere! 



MIRAGE 



THE PRAIRIE SPIRIT 

A WIDE champaign lay dull and dusty 
In the last red glow of a fading sky, 
Mars sent a ray from a rapier rusty, 
Piercing a cloud that was sailing high. 
Solitude's incubus weight 
Paralyzed every endeavor. 
Cheerless forever 

Lay in the lee of a black ridge of slate 
Casting deep gloom on the trail that led by. 

Deep overhead the sky grew clearer 

As dust-clouds fell in a desert dew. 

Stars now breathed in an air austerer 

The same sereneness Nazareth knew. 

Stirrings began to arise 

Vaguely among the dry grasses, 

Shadowy masses 

Seemed in the twilight cast down from the skies, 

Masses of amethyst, purple, and blue. 



I 32 ] 
Into my ear low words were spoken, 
And I felt the press of a kindly hand, 
Speech no more than a murmur broken 
Sufficed to make me understand. 
A calming Presence there stood 
Suddenly on the great meadow, 
And a strange shadow 
For a brief moment submerged me in flood 
Like a great golden wave spilled on the sand. 

At night in earth's unpeopled spaces 

I would seek the ghost that is gone to-day. 

Ghost! come again from the unknown places 

To fire my sky when it is gray. 

Spirit I knew but to love, 

Can it not be that you hear me ? 

If you are near me. 

Stretch out your hand in a touch that will prove 

Memory not the last friend who will stay. 



BROTHERS 

Majestic distance, soothe me with the still 
Yet forceful touch you have, commanding rest 
When weariness is heavy — let me fill 
My cup from soundless depths the hills invest 
With the deep purple of the evening lights 
And sweet solemnity of summer nights. 

Majestic silence, rhythmless monotone. 

Your great deep voice that yet speaks not at all 

Tells of the vanished moments I have known 

And pricks a ready memory to recall 

Smiles well-beloved, tears that I used to share, 

Voices now lost in your unuttered prayer. 

Distance and Silence fellow spirits are. 
Regnant in joy or pain with equal hand. 
Sending strange messages from the evening star. 
Busy with wounds that heal or bleed unscanned, 
Breathing with Mystery her untrammeled breath. 
Holding with Fate the keys of life and death. 



THE LARK 

Here ! through this thicket — 

Thorns, do you say ? 

That is his way — 

Bayonets add to the worth of a picket. 

See ! On that tall spike 

There — don't you see ? 

Yellow! That's he, 

Swinging and singing the song that we all like. 

Just the one theme, sir. 
Roundelay — true — 
You do not seem, sir, 
Roundels to rue ! 



Lark, for the singing 
Thank you — but say. 



Lark, if not quite too drunk to hear us pray, 
Why in our eyes do you set the tears springing ? 



PRAIRIE FOG 

A FLOOD of heavy mist 

Swirled in the clefts of the lower places, 

Drifting halfway up the bluffs, to twist 

Billowing about their bases. 

While from fog rose drippingly 

Heads of rocklike isles at sea. 

The almost flat sun-rays 

Turned the white surfaces rose and golden, 

Tinting the upper layers of haze 

With milkiness of an opal holden 

Itself in milkiest of fingers 

Carmine-stained where the blood lingers. 

The bold and merry sun 

Confident, laughing, pushed back the curtain, 

Foggy spirals began to run 

Skeining, to make the looker certain 

Of tree and earth and hill and stone 

Stripped of silk when the fog was gone. 



THE CENTIPEDE 

I DO not think I '11 take you seriously, my friend, 

For all your fierceness — no, 

Maugre the joints I have not special time to spend 

In counting, even though 

Claws pile the gooseflesh up deliciously. 

Jaws wiggle wide and vibrate viciously. 

If you come visiting unasked, you are prepared 

To take pot-luck, and gladly, — 

Aha! you're smashed, and just as I was getting scared 

The pot was aimed not badly. 

Ann, hurry, please, collect from the floor a fund 

Fantastic — legs and joints that are moribund. 



A DRY SPELL 

The sky is brass to-day, my dear. 

The earth is cracked and baked and brown, 

The spirit that dwells oftenest here 

Is off across the down. 

The downs, the dunes, stretch far away, 

All hot and gray, 

Burnt rock and thirst and shimmering glaze visit us to-day. 

The hetds grow small to-day, my dear, 

The cattle seek the scanty shade. 

The sun when zenith dallying near 

Makes men and beasts afraid. 

The downs, the dunes, are sand and clay. 

No grass have they. 

Likely there is a carcass at the water-hole to-day. 

I thought I saw to-day, my dear, 
A welcome inland lake or sea, 
Tall trees were waving in the air 
About, but presently 



[38] 

The downs, the dunes, before me lay, 

In dry dismay. 

Waterless watercourses, dear, — not even pools to-day. 

The evening star is lit, my dear, 

And mournfully, as the soft light 

Dies slowly in the west, I hear 

The plaintive dove's good-night. 

The downs, the dunes, fade far away, 

How can I stay 

When troubling echoes of the past are calling me to-day ? 



THE MESQUITE 

The tough mesquite is an odd little tree, of the prairie's 
special culture. 

It brings forth beans and gum and thorns and leaves. 
And when its root is disinterred, a forest in sepulture 

Rewards the man who digs and chops and grieves. 

On a blazing day, when sestival heat is parching all the 
valleys. 

And starch removes from shirts unduly pleated. 
Weariness in search of shade under arbored alleys 

Uttereth words that cannot be repeated. 

The leaves are very slim and long, possessing knife-like edges. 

Perfect pulmonics, yet unburnt of rays, 
A yellow tasseled bloom abounds in unsuspected pledges 

Percentage-hunting bees with skill appraise. 

The tree is useful largely from the fact there is no other. 
It shows what vegetation does in straits. 

And like the so-called dogy, the calf without a mother. 
It only lives because it hopes and waits. 



[ 40 ] 
Absurdity of the desert, choking lofty words, or tender. 

The fight was age-long that has left you there 
Dwarfed, mirth-provoking, yet without the knowledge of 
surrender, 
And with my smile I proffer you a tear. 



THE FARMER 

He looks with eyes that slowly dim 
To see the changes come 
In the rude ways that harass him 
As he carves out his home. 

Not in a year do tough sods yield 
Soft seas of golden earth 
To fill a coffer from a field 
That knows a laborer's worth. 

When Comfort, striding down the land 
Obeys the farmer's call 
And takes his host's hard calloused hand 
His jocund features fall. 

He sees a stranger, not a friend. 
And bides for days unknown — 
Age never bids the farmer spend 
The coins for others sown. 



[42] 

The wrinkling man still beats the sward 
Where Fancy's dews still gleam, 
A narrow mound, a narrow board 
The Comfort of his dream. 



THE OLD GENTLEMAN 

A QUIET old gentleman walks down the street, 

Precisely attired, no young blood more neat 

Than he in his broadcloth and polished top hat, 

A-kicking up twinkles from each dainty spat. 

He skirts the moist places and bows very low 

To friends, who address him with smiles, for they know 

His answering smile seems to brighten the day, 

And somebody greets him each step of his way. 

Sometimes when my temper is ugly and grim, 

I go to the corner and wait there for him, 

And furtively glancing the way he must come, 

I feel myself growing less gloomy and glum. 

But he does n't know how he smooths out the frown. 

And he does n't guess why the folks in the town 

Turn out so it happens the same every day. 

And somebody greets him each step of his way. 

This morning the people were hanging around 
The post-office, where he is sure to be found 



[ 44 ] 

On time to the minute, but he was not there. 

And soon the crowd melted away into air, 

With whispers, and whispers, now there and now here, 

And once, poorly hidden, the glint of a tear. 

The quiet old gentleman left us to-day, 

But some one will greet him each step of his way. 



TO A FRAGMENT OF MALACHITE 

There came a curious storm one day 
And lasted for ten thousand years 
Before thick steam-clouds cleared away 
From metal-vapored atmospheres. 
The rain was gold and silver then, 
And rocks condensed from stannic skies 
In dews that fell and fell again 
Where Kohinoors dropped from their dies. 

Gases and crystals were about, 
Jesus and Csesar, side by side, 
Brushed now Tecumseh's deerskin clout. 
Now Lammermoor's lamented bride. 
An autumn gale winged Pompey west, 
Francesca was alone that night, 
Chihuahua saw Lucrece's breast 
Mirrored in molten malachite. 

Fragment that tells of ancient friends 
Whose storied stars enchanted me, 



[ 46 ] 
My verse can be but poor amends 
For loss of that great company. 
Kismet has mocked, yet would atone 
Faintly in rhyme for buried days 
With lines appointed for your own 
When Charlemagne was chrysoprase. 



THREE SONNETS TO DELILAH 

I 

Red-lipped, alert, keen-witted, never cold, 
Wildly awake in love if roused at all. 
What in the scream they said was country's call 
Stirred in thee flame when womanhood was sold ? 
Woman, say truly — when thou didst unfold 
iVll the dear arts of sex, the virginal 
Modest allurements, that a man might fall, 
Did the day's dreg no taint of torture hold ? 
Seeming to live, and living but to seem. 
Where in the twilight hast thou lost Regret ? 
Night in the grave may sate thee with a dream, 
Mayhap thy sleep is one long gladness, yet 
Cannot the lies Remembrance points redeem 
Tears love may gladly dry, but not forget ? 

II 
Silver they offered, and why shouldst thou pay 
More for the silver than the silver's worth 



[48] 

Reckoned by women versed in goods of earth — 
Was it to press of debt thou wert a prey, 
Hadst thou a Philistine paramour hid away 
For whom thy body's tricks were ghastly mirth. 
Lightly to ransom an ill-gotten birth. 
Shot with the tiger's grace sweetly to slay ? 
Come ! thou well knowest Samson clung to thee 
Finding in thee some worth to match his own — 
Too large of hand to grasp a miser's glee. 
Prattle not price, tell us of things unknown, 
Fury or secret stress thy better plea 
For parting with thy body in a loan. 

Ill 

As a ripe field of corn in autumn haze 
Glimmering, shows a half-hid wealth, not clear. 
Not glaring, not too brazen bold, but sere 
Or melancholy, as the west wind plays 
Wavering over it, so appear the days 
Warmed by thy presence sometime with us here, 
For in the mists of many a harvest year 
Looms thy dim Shape who sadly went her ways. 
Grave we esteem thee, with a measured tread 



[ 49 ] 

Walking in scenes that never smothered pain, 
Lifting indifferently a noble head, 
Leaving a secret buried in the plain. 
Leaving unsatisfied the curious dead 
Questioners, and the living who remain. 



LUDLOW STREET JAIL 

It is true they say it ought to go, but the heap of rubbish 

is so small, 
Forgetting it were easier than stooping with a brush, 
Yet steadily the ugly insects on their petty errands crawl. 
Hating light that insects know means the men who crush. 

Pity, Ludlow Street, the debtors, 

Thou as well art dreg of days. 

Apotheosis of fetters. 

Witness of the law's delays. 

It is true a voice, now here, now there, has told how leeches 

suck the blood 
From impotent poor human flesh where blood still feebly runs. 
Right good and valiant men there are in whom the heap of 

moral mud 
Has stirred the force that lightly sleeps in Mercy's seeing sons. 

Pity, Ludlow Street, the debtors. 

Call an apathetic press, 

Set the type in heavy letters 

Legislators to obsess. 



[ 51 ] 
It is true that men are ready to come to the help of prisoners 

caged to sate 
A private spite, the angry mood of vengeance seeking prey. 
But how shall groping debtors know the Society outside the 

gate? 
The body execution, says the Judge, means jail or pay. 
Pity, Ludlow Street, the debtors, 
Bid Manhattan a good-night, 
Leave your province to your betters, 
Cleanly justice, cheerful light. 



MY VIOLIN 

You are not all for self — for hours long 

You speak responsive to the secret mood 

I share alone with your kind resonant wood 

That joins the slender strings to give me song. 

With you I live amid a motley throng, 

Sweet dames of eld, pageants that stir the blood, 

Elves, knights, and angels beautiful and good, 

And love's deep sadness making weak the strong. 

Ah ! you are my own spirit, echoing 

The passion, gloom, despair, I live through, when 

My daemon lays the bow upon the string, — 

Your plaintive tone cajoles the past again, 

Lifting to heaven in a sending swing 

Whose ebb bears sweets stolen for mortal men. 



GRETCHEN 

Pleasure of love is but a dream, 

Sorrow of love is lifelong woe, 

Canst still see the weeds i' the stream 

Under the bridge and far below. 

Though no longer sighing 

For the feeble crying 

That pierced thy heart i' the long ago ? 

Dank was the gaol and the air was foul, 

Thy lover spoke to thee no more, 

The evil elves grinned cheek by jowl 

Watching thee from the cold stone floor, 

Singing thee of thy gladness 

In the night of madness 

That fell from heaven lower and lower. 

Love calls thee saint and sister dear. 
And makes perchance thine old wound bleed 
When words that stray from Mary's ear 
Recall the maid who knelt to plead, 
"Ah, thou of sorrows, hear me ! 
Bow thy mercy near me 
Most graciously unto my need !" 



A DRY ROSE 

They say I cannot live, mamma. 
To see another day, 
So help me now as I shall need 
When time is passed away. 

Mamma, my basket bring me, please, — 
Thank you — look under those 
Blue chiffons and beneath them all 
There is a withered rose. 

It does look silly, mother dear, 
In a confirmed old maid. 
And if you knew about the flower 
You'd grieve you, I'm afraid. 

But mother — you recall a morn 
Love seized you from the sky. 
Through flowering time and fruitage time 
To lead till you should die ? 



[55 ] 

Dear mother, once there fell on me 
The Once that is the All, 
And mother, as I love the Spring 
I loved that madrigal. 

The moon shone then as shining now, 
Ineffably — I hear 
Again the music passing sweet, 
Triumphant, mother dear. 

They say I 'm loveless, laugh at me. 
But now the play is done. 
Dear mother, put my basket by. 
My rose is almost gone. 

I 've fondled it, day in, day out. 
Since that one starlit even, 
And I must have it on my breast 
When I shall be in heaven. 

And so, mamma, please put it there, 
Don't cry — the Lord knows best. 
He won't forget the flower and me. 
His children both, confessed. 



[ 56 ] 
O, mother, it is very cold 
And dark within the ground. 
O, Angel of the Lord, come down, 
And Glory, shine aromid ! 



ENVOY 

Hours of idleness lost in fragrant shade 

Leave shredded blossoms gathered while I stayed 

Loitering in green by-ways, plucking now 

A daisy from a stalk, robbing a bough 

Of fruit in promise, till the garden verge 

Passed absently, I start as I emerge. 

I will not seek the garden paths to-day. 
But when the streams and sedges sing of May 
I know where, waking, I may sweetly sleep 
Somnambulist in shops the flowers keep, 
Bartering leisure broad awake to stand. 
Finding strange garlands hanging in my hand. 

Searching the cluster born of ice and snow. 

Of sun and earth as stems and rootlets know, 

Among the gentle buds, friend, here and there 

Detect the hint of a wild odor, rare 

Reward more dear for many a futile quest. 

And challenged, name the plant we loved the best ! 



Bm 



?S!i 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



|j)U^ hi fSiif 



